


A Silent Harmony

by AceOfSwords



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Enemies, Fluff and Humor, Headcanon Accepted, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Kissing, M/M, Memes, Nonbinary Beelzebub (Good Omens), Oneupmanship, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Principality Aziraphale (Good Omens), They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, fluffy did I mention fluffy, sorta kinda time travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25013770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfSwords/pseuds/AceOfSwords
Summary: Aziraphale struggles with his desire to tell Crowley the whole truth about his job as a Principality and what it means for their recently-minted romance. There's kissing both on- and off-screen. There might be drunken confessions. Crowley and Hastur are jerks to each other. Gabriel is a jerk to all and sundry and it's played for laughs. Oh, except Beelzebub, they're implied to be dating like the tags say. Rated Teen And Up for language.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Beelzebub/Gabriel (heavily implied), Crowley & Hastur (Good Omens)
Kudos: 6





	1. Fallen Out With my Head

**Author's Note:**

> This story grew out of research into the title “Principality”, along with a throwaway line in episode 3, Hard Times, when Crowley and Aziraphale meet up near where Noah is building the Ark and Crowley asks if God is flooding the whole world. Aziraphale answers that he doesn’t think God is angry at the Chinese, the Native Americans, or the Australians. But how does he know those names, thousands of years BC(E)? Where I took the answer might not be where you expect (and won’t show up for a chapter or two). 
> 
> I also took the liberty of applying a meme I saw on Pinterest where the management of Heaven and Hell are constantly getting phone notifications when a miracle is performed. In this version they are informed whenever powers are used, not just for miracles.  
> The title comes from They Might be Giants’s “By The Time You Get This”. Every chapter title will be a snippet of TMBG lyrics, at least I hope.
> 
> Anyway, on to the fic!

The Principality Aziraphale leaned forward, his hands on his hips, squinting down at the globe before him. He hadn’t got the resolution zoomed in quite right to find his flaming sword, but he wasn’t feeling very sincere about completing the task, either. After looking about stealthily to ensure Gabriel wasn’t spying on him or anything, he hooked a thumb into a large patch of clouds and set the frozen image back to spinning. Maybe he’d happen upon it by chance. He slurped loudly on his hot cocoa and watched the continuing thunderstorm impassively.

In another room of Heaven, Gabriel’s phone went ping for the seventeenth time in the last half hour. He continued loudly haranguing the unlucky angel across his office desk, so that he could pause at the most unnerving moment in his diatribe, then spared the phone a glance.

[Aziraphale] has stopped time on the Earth!

Big whoop, he thought. The phone pinged again.

[Aziraphale] has started time on the Earth!  


He grunted, slammed the phone onto his desk, and said “FURTHERMORE” to the uncomfortable, squirming angel before him and the phone went ping again. A little muscle in his jaw bulged in and out as he picked up the phone again.  


[Aziraphale] has done a miracle! (marshmallows appeared in hot cocoa)  


While he was still holding the phone, it pinged again.  


[Aziraphale] has done a miracle! (marshmallows appeared in hot cocoa)  


The muscle in his jaw, by this point, looked like it might be trying to escape his physical form. The phone pinged a third time.  


[Aziraphale] has done a miracle! (hot cocoa heated to perfect temperature)  


“WHAT THE HEAVEN!” he roared and threw the phone across the room, miracling it to burst into flames as it arced, thus leaving an unsightly burned spot on the wall where it impacted. Gabriel got a new phone most every day, sometimes multiple times. His superiors felt that he was needlessly violent with them, and he’d already been written up three times this week for being wasteful, but angels had the _nerve_ to be doing _things_ at all _hours_ when he was _trying_ to put the fear of _God_ into-

He paused this line of thinking as he realized with ever-mounting rage that the angel he’d been chewing out had taken the opportunity to flee without being excused. Well! _That_ was going in their permanent file. As soon as he could be bothered to remember their name.  


It was an excellent way to get Gabriel to “happen” to not have phone updates while Aziraphale looked for that damnable sword, at least in Aziraphale’s opinion.  


**********  


Crowley was hella annoyed.  


He’d found out about the wildfires in Australia (which somehow he’d missed hearing about for some months – it was early winter now) and been fully prepared to take a nap for at least a decade. 2020 was shaping up to be a total bullshit year and he wanted nothing to do with any of it, and other than worrying slightly about whether it would bother Aziraphale, he’d felt no qualms about shutting off communications to everybody, and had settled in for a week-long test nap.  


A nap attempt that had lasted _exactly_ until he was beginning to drift off to sleep, before there had been an obnoxiously loud cop knock on his front door.  
He stormed to the door in his pink bunny slippers and a bathrobe that was only technically tied closed over one hip.  


“WHAT. THE FUCK.”  


“Hey Crowley, I heard that you-“  


“FUCK. OFF. HASTUR.” Crowley leaned forward threateningly and Hastur was forced to take a half-step backward. He lost his balance as he shuffled just far enough back on the top step, and grabbed the handrail to stay upright. Crowley watched this with amusement and slight disappointment that Hastur hadn’t landed on his ass. Maybe he could make some arrangements, though... Hastur’s zombie-like skin flushed a deeper green with anger.  


“I wouldn’t act that way if I were you,” he hissed. “I am in the know about your……………………”  


Crowley stared at him with one eyebrow cocked. Why the _fuck_ was he on Crowley’s porch saying partial sentences. At this time of day. It was 3:52 PM, the perfect time to take a nap to get away from reality. The nerve.  


“………………………………………………………………………………………activities,” Hastur finished.  


Crowley continued staring as blankly as possible, assisted by the fact he’d been wearing his favorite driving sunglasses indoors and hadn’t stopped now. All of Crowley’s identical driving sunglasses were his favorites; this was just his current pair. He cleared his throat. He waited for Hastur to talk again. Hastur just looked at him expectantly, his dead eyes deliberately fixed on what he thought of as Crowley’s stupid face, rather than any other insufficiently clothed part of him. Hastur shuddered involuntarily at this thought. He was used to looking people squarely in the throat. It was a good intimidation factor as they subconsciously thought he was going to lunge. But he didn’t want to take his eyes off Crowley’s face because there was…egh, too much human-esque flesh. _Ugh. Humans._ Also, the bastard telegraphed everything he did in his expression, and he’d already almost made him fall down the steps just on general principles.  


This line of staring back intimidatingly, well, it wasn’t actually _doing_ anything, Hastur realized.  


“Your _angelic_ activities,” he finally was uncomfortable enough to state. Crowley thought he did a very good job of keeping his poker face, but inside, something primal was screaming. When he returned his mind to the present moment, one of his eyebrows was doing things he hadn’t realized it was doing, and Hastur had the tiniest, tiniest smirk turning up a corner of his mouth.  


“Ngk,” said Crowley. He continued staring at Hastur. If he outlasted the monstrous Duke’s patience, he might come out of this alive, if nothing else. He might not be able to save Aziraphale, but at least he’d get to needle Hastur on his way out. Small favors.  


“You were _seen_ ,” Hastur finally said when he realized he wasn’t getting any more syllables out of Crowley presently. This was extremely annoying. He wanted Crowley to be writhing on the floor before him in pain and begging for mercy, was what he wanted, and here he was standing in the bloody cold on the idiot’s stairs while Crowley waggled his eyebrows.  


“Seen.” Crowley said flatly. It wasn’t a question. He was doing his damnedest to act calm and unimpressed, despite the continued brain-screaming. At least Hastur was disappointed in his reaction, he supposed.  


“Consorting,” Hastur said. Crowley’s twitching eyebrow moved downward into a half-frown. Ah. Hastur thought _I got through to him, then?_  


Crowley thought _he can’t possibly mean that he saw us kissing last night that was inside the bookshop that was private that was-_ “with an angelic entity,” Hastur added unnecessarily. He gave a dramatic pause and the words “in. the. park.” slithered out like poison slugs intended to destroy Crowley.  


Crowley guffawed. “I was seen? Consorting? By whom? That was. That.” He lost himself in a gale of laughter that reddened his face until it matched his hair. He hoped he was hiding his enormous relief. Hastur was quite green at this point. It was…not the reaction he’d been after.  


Crowley had rehearsed the cover story that he and Aziraphale had concocted, millenia ago at this point, so many times he could tell it in his sleep. Ah yes, sleep, which he could have been doing if this idiotic Duke of Hell weren’t on his doorstep telling him he’d been seen having a standard Tuesday afternoon conversation in Saint James Park. There was none of the hanky-panky that “consorting” had seemed, in his panic, to imply. He spat out the cover story as easily as driving his car: he’d been tempting Aziraphale. Bringing down the other side one at a time by dragging them into the quicksand of sin, all that sort of thing. He took great satisfaction in spitting it all out in one giant breath and slamming the door in Hastur’s face. What a tosser. His uppance would come. Crowley would see to that.  


**********  


“What are you saying?” Aziraphale said, confused. Crowley’s phonecall wasn’t making a lot of sense.  


“Well, I’m saying that we need to be more careful,” Crowley responded, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one had seen him go to the last functional phonebooth in London (to his knowledge). It didn’t appear anyone was interested in following him. “I think you know what I thought he was on about.” He could practically hear Aziraphale blushing.  


“F-Friday?” Aziraphale managed after a second.  


“Friday,” Crowley confirmed as gently as he could. There was a fuzzy, crackling quality to Aziraphale’s silence. Crowley knew when phone lines sounded like that it was a general sign the angel was upset. He didn’t need to make it worse.  


“Look, Crowley,” he said at last. “I can’t…I can’t _not_ …” there was a long pause. “Not see you. Not after…not after all this time.” He didn’t sound scared, he sounded exasperated.  


“But maybe we should be a little more…clandestine, Angel?”  


Aziraphale thought back over those 6000 years of pining and hints, veiled glances and quiet yearning late at night. He was so weary of their relationship being a secret. He let out a gusty sigh. He was going to have to tell Crowley the particulars of his job, one of these days. He didn’t relish the thought. “Alright, we change meeting places.”  


“Agreed.”  


“And we keep public interaction focused on business.”  


“Of course,” said Crowley. There was another pause. “Wednesday night wine?” he asked, just to be sure.  


“Naturally,” said Aziraphale warmly. “I have new red that I’ve been dying to try. Er, that is, a very old red. I left it in a cave rather a long time ago.” He stopped short, acutely aware that he shouldn’t even be dropping that much of a hint. Not until he was ready to come clean.  


Crowley finished the conversation amiably and walked the two miles home to plot something Hastur definitely wouldn’t enjoy whatsoever.


	2. Assign Regret to Those Accountable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley seeks revenge on Hastur in what at first appears like a juvenile prank. A small slice of Aziraphale's past is revealed. Gabriel's phone goes ping, and Beelzebub's phone goes dong, but not in that order. There is a contest/argument involving drinking, and then some making out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from They Might Be Giants lyrics to “Circular Karate Chop”. There is a real café in London with a similar name to where Beelzebub and Gabriel are breakfasting; I’ve tweaked it just a bit. Hitchhiker’s Guide references are always free.

Crowley was finding it hard to hold in his gleeful cackling. He kept it down to an under-the-breath chortle by force of will, and found that having to focus on it rather detracted from how much fun he was having. 

He had, through means of Sergeant Shadwell, long since known the location of Hastur’s earthly home. Hastur spent as little time in it as he possibly could, and it was perhaps best described a Hell away from Hell. Entirely unsatisfying and random bits torn from magazines were stuck at odd angles just slightly higher on the walls than anyone of average height could see without craning their necks. Back when he’d had Ligur as an equally intermittent paper roommate, he’d put up a few pointed signs about not leaving water glasses right-side-up in the cupboard filled with the legs of crickets that Ligur’s head-chameleon had eaten, as well as passive-aggressive credos about the necessity of leaving the bathroom a horrifying mess, just like one had found it (one of Crowley’s past ventures in annoying Hastur had involved hiring a maid for his place, but only for the bathroom). Directly across from the kitchen chair (no table) was a printout from the internet with a grisly medical tableau Hastur was quite proud of. “GINORMOUS MEGA-COLON” said the headline. Hastur’d been directly responsible for the colon owner’s tumor, and enjoyed viewing the distended organ while he ate. These items were the only things that passed for décor. There was no other furniture, unless you counted the hole in the floor where Ligur had used to wallow when he was nostalgic for Hell. It was, in short, a dump. 

The bright side for Crowley in all this was that Hastur’s front steps were already extremely treacherous. _Fitting_ , he’d thought, _matches their owner_. He was beyond incensed over Hastur making any commentary at all about Aziraphale, especially one that had scared him as badly as last night. 

Hastur’s middle step bowed heavily if anyone larger than a 4-year-old walked on it, and the top two appeared to have been busted off by an angry and amateurish karate student rather than measured and cut. Crowley was strategically pouring water, one glass at a time, over the parts of these steps that seemed most likely to host Hastur’s feet. 

In fact, despite the evil glee his actions brought him, watching ice freeze was a new kind of tedium for a demon who’d once hung stars in their places and waited patiently for planets to be strategically applied by others once he’d done. It was a good thing he had the Bentley down the street out of sight, and could go sit inside listening to the stereo for long stints. 

It was about 5 AM when he finished icing the steps to his satisfaction. He’d also carefully slathered every bit of crappy railing near the top of the steps with petroleum jelly, and now did the same to the lower portions he could reach from the ground. He then poured all the rest of the water jug in a massive puddle in front of the stairs, went back to the car to stow the empty container, and settled into the tree he’d staked out just past midnight, with a thermos of hot coffee and a few currant buns. 

Crowley carefully propped his book up in such a way that he’d see any motion on the porch across the street and settled in for a long wait. He was pleasantly surprised just past dawn when a kid on a bike paused and flung a rock as hard as he could through the front window. Apparently Hastur’d been making other enemies. 

In the brief moment of silence after the impact, the kid fled like the very hounds of Hell were on his tail. It wasn’t far from the truth – as a Duke, Hastur commanded much worse legions than mere hounds. Said Duke stepped onto the top stair at speed, angling to see who was now on his hit list. Crowley was on the edge of his seat. 

There was a thud. There was a scream that built in intensity and horror until at last it died away in an unholy howling gurgle. 

Crowley had brought binoculars and was able to take in every last detail of what the frozen holy water did to Hastur, from the moment it touched his bare hand and wrist onward. 

In quite another part of London, Lord Beelzebub’s phone went dong. 

[Holy water] has killed [Duke Hastur]. 

There was never a murderer named for this particular method, and Hell didn’t usually care to investigate, no matter how hokey the circumstances. It was a loophole one could drive a Bentley through. Beelzebub paused in their game of footsie with Gabriel under the breakfast table of Coffee & Canoodling and looked at their screen. They wore what, on their face, passed for a smile for the remainder of the day. _Good riddance_ , they thought.

********** 

A very long time ago, Aziraphale had been notorious far and wide (among angels, anyway) for his thoughtful addition to incipient planets of atmospheres with various gaseous blends, varying strengths of gravity, and most of all for his lovingly finessed coastlines. God herself was, of course, in charge of the bulk of the landmass shapes, but Aziraphale’s domain was embellishing that near-perfection until it truly shone. 

A very long time ago, God had also appointed various angels for similar tasks that allowed her a seventh day of pure rest and relaxation. One of the designees, the Seraph who literally hung the stars on Sundays, was seen by Aziraphale, quite by chance, surreptitiously issuing a rather fancy and ornate sword to an envoy. Envoys were by a wide margin the have-nots of Heaven. They were set to be guardians of individual beings that hadn’t been created, thus far. They were, at that point, twiddling their celestial thumbs and slowly becoming resigned to their lack of a piece of the pie. This Seraph who was in charge of setting the spheres aglow was giving away (at least) a Principality-level sword? Aziraphale tutted to himself but kept quiet for a time. A week later, when he discovered why the angel had done it, Aziraphale was instantly and irrevocably smitten.

********** 

[Aziraphale] has done a miracle! (750 mL of ethanol and sugars removed from bloodstream) insisted Gabriel’s phone. Something had gone wonky or else Aziraphale was having an extremely wild night, because this was the 35th time the notification had gone off. He wished desperately he were allowed to silence the ping. Absolutely none of the other archangels had to deal with moment-by-moment updates on what a drunken sot Aziraphale had become in the past six months or so. Gabriel had been created completely devoid of curiosity, so he did not ponder what had impelled this newfound love of the bottle, just loathed it from the bottom of the part of his chest where other humanoids kept their hearts. 

[Aziraphale] has done a miracle! (423 mL of ethanol and sugars removed from bloodstream) 

[Aziraphale] has done a miracle! (877 mL of ethanol and sugars removed from bloodstream) 

[Aziraphale] has done a miracle! (45 mL of ethanol and sugars removed from bloodstream) 

He would be in quite a lot of trouble if he smashed another phone without waiting until the end of the week. He didn’t want to deal with Michael’s gimlet eyes judging him yet again. He wondered briefly how these alerts were mere seconds apart as he dozed in and out of annoyed, unrestful slumber. 

********** 

Meanwhile, at Aziraphale’s bookshop, an animated argument was taking place. Crowley had bet Aziraphale a gift of three rare books, titles to be announced, that he couldn’t specify which of the many empty bottles surrounding them he reconstituted his wine into. In his opinion, you could only put your wine back into its original container. Aziraphale had bet him a tank of petrol for the Bentley. Crowley had somehow kept a straight face – he’d filled up the Bentley exactly once. It ran exactly how he wanted it to run, and that included never having to stop into a petrol station (although Crowley was rather enamored of some of the snack foods anyway). 

“Well anyways Angel, air pissing….AIR PISSING” said the demon, trying very hard to impress him but frowning frowzily as he realized there were 4 Aziraphales and they were slightly up and to the right of where he’d thought Az was standing. “THE THING ABOUT IT” he yelled, pointing his index finger into the middle of the veritable halo of Aziraphales, “THING IS…IS…” 

Aziraphale knew this one. “S’not a bloody…the thing about it is…that the molecules!” Crowley started to argue and Aziraphale raised his voice combatively. “THE MOLecules,” he continued primly once Crowley was shouted to a standstill, “are quite…fre…prehensile…no. Erm. They have…bits. Little bits, they look like marbles but smaller…” 

“Neutrons?” supplied Crowley, but he sounded very unsure. 

“QUARKS!” said Aziraphale triumphantly. “You can’t paint the bloody inside of a bottle without…without quarks.” 

“No one…no one’s even mentioned painting anything and you should…you should stop…” Crowley gradually realized that Aziraphale had slid gradually closer during the “heat” of the “argument” and was sitting quite near him making a face like a very confused fish as he’d forgot to move it back to its normal configuration in the middle of the word “bloody”. 

Crowley endeavored to suavely pretend to stretch and put his arm behind Azriaphale’s back so he could “happen” to reach out and try to kiss him. Sadly both of them were soused enough that he successfully punched Aziraphale in the shoulder and Aziraphale fell off the sofa, still with the “oo” lips but now making a scandalized face as he tried to work out why the perspective in the room had shifted so suddenly. He screwed up his face in concentration and removed half the volume of wine he was carrying. 

“There, you SEE?” he demanded, and was surprised when Crowley said nothing but tried to slither down next to him. It was more of a determined flop, but Aziraphale, now half-sober, realized the demon had badly miscalculated coming in for a kiss. 

“I didn’t realize this was a date,” he tried to murmur, but Crowley was giving his lips far more attention than he’d bargained for. It was a full five minutes before he managed to gasp it out in full. 

“It wasn’t…until you gave me rugburn,” Crowley groused, but he was smirking slightly. 

“Excuse me? Who exactly punched me off the sofa?” Aziraphale countered. 

“You have to admit knocking you over worked out nicely,” said Crowley the next time they both came up for air.


End file.
